Power Through Repose eBook

Again, as the muscles are guided by means of the nerves,
a training for the guidance of the muscles means,
so far as the physique is concerned, first, a training
for the better use of the nervous force. The
nervous system is so wonderful in its present power
for good or ill, so wonderful in its possible power
either way, and so much more wonderful as we realize
what we do not know about it, that it is not surprising
that it is looked upon with awe. Neither is it
strange that it seems to many, especially the ignorant,
a subject to be shunned. It is not uncommon for
a mother, whose daughter is suffering, and may be
on the verge of nervous prostration because of her
misused nerves, to say, “I do not want my daughter
to know that she has nerves.” The poor
child knows it already in the wrong way. It is
certainly better that she should know her nerves by
learning a wholesome, natural use of them. The
mother’s remark is common with many men and
women when speaking of themselves,—­common
with teachers when talking to or of their pupils.
It is of course quite natural that it should be a
prevailing idea, because hitherto the mention of nerves
by man or woman has generally meant perverted nerves,
and to dwell on our perversions, except long enough
to shun them, is certainly unwholesome in the extreme.

II.

PERVERSIONS IN THE GUIDANCE OF THE BODY

So evident are the various, the numberless perversions
of our powers in the misuse of the machine, that it
seems almost unnecessary to write of them. And
yet, from another point of view, it is very necessary;
for superabundant as they are, thrusting their evil
results upon us every day in painful ways, still we
have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, and for
want of a fuller realization of these most grievous
mistakes, we are in danger of plunging more and more
deeply into the snarls to which they bring us.
From nervous prostration to melancholia, or other
forms of insanity, is not so long a step.

It is of course a natural sequence that the decadence
of an entire country must follow the waning powers
of the individual citizens. Although that seems
very much to hint, it cannot be too much when we consider
even briefly the results that have already come to
us through this very misuse of our own voluntary powers.
The advertisements of nerve medicines alone speak
loudly to one who studies in the least degree the
physical tendencies of the nation. Nothing proves
better the artificial state of man, than the artificial
means he uses to try to adjust himself to Nature’s
laws,—­means which, in most cases, serve
to assist him to keep up a little longer the appearance
of natural life. For any simulation of that which
is natural must sooner or later lead to nothing, or
worse than nothing. Even the rest-cures, the
most simple and harmless of the nerve restorers, serve
a mistaken end. Patients go with nerves tired